Rather than protecting Illinois River Watershed, Oklahoma lawmakers have allowed it to be exploited

Rather than taking steps to reign in the clout of the growing poultry industry and protect the public, Oklahoma lawmakers have chosen to further deregulate and shield it from legal attacks.

This has given Big Agriculture and its corporate lobbyists license to despoil our natural resources, wreak havoc on our region’s waterways and exploit our state farmers.

The inflection point was reached in 2005 when then-Attorney General Drew Edmonson sued several large agricultural producers, including Tyson, Cargill, and Simmons Foods, that commonly contract with Oklahoma’s poultry farms. The lawsuit sought to hold these major poultry companies accountable for polluting the Illinois River Watershed with phosphorus from spreading chicken waste.

A trial was held in 2009, but it took 14 more years before U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell ruled for the state, finding the companies financially responsible for decades of pollution, ordering them to fund cleanup efforts, and imposing strict limits on poultry waste application to prevent further damage.

Despite no farmers being named as defendants in the case, the response from supporters of the poultry companies has been to redirect blame and portray the litigation as an attack on agriculture.

The issue has put Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Attorney General Gentner Drummond at odds. Drummond  continued to pursue the lawsuit while serving as state attorney general in order to ensure the companies were held liable. Stitt has sided with the poultry industry, recently meeting with producers in Adair County and saying the suit is only lining the pockets of the trial attorneys.

Tyson Foods, for their part, stated that if a sensible solution is not reached, it would be compelled to phase out its contracts with producers in the watershed. AG Drummond has called Tyson’s threats “gamesmanship” and part of a coordinated misinformation campaign by Tyson Foods to intimidate Oklahomans and deflect accountability. He said reports show Tyson is seeking to increase its production capacity in the watershed which contradicts claims that it has been forced to scale back operations due to the lawsuit.

What were the factors that helped to create and maintain this clash between corporate interests and the safeguarding of our environment that has transformed life for rural residents?

As many as 99.5% of U.S. chickens are raised by contract farmers for major processors, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A few large companies like Tyson control the majority of the market, giving them immense leverage over farmers.

Farmers invest heavily in barns and equipment but receive payment based on short-term contracts, often in what’s known as a “tournament system” that pits them against each other for bonuses.

The system traps famers in debt and limits their ability to find other buyers, especially as large processors control the processing plants.

In essence, while farmers own the land and buildings, the large corporations own the birds, feed, and market, creating a heavily controlled environment where most farmers are dependent on Big Ag.

Yet this begs the question of why these operators are often granted protections to escape responsibility for the damages they cause.

The answer is that Oklahoma’s regulatory environment, shaped by powerful agricultural interests, has prioritized and shielded large-scale poultry production.

The 2024 Oklahoma Legislature created a new law, Senate Bill 1424, that forbids property owners in the Illinois River Watershed whose lands and surface waterways have been polluted by runoff from poultry litter from pursuing legal action against contracted poultry growers unless an enforcement action has been taken by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry.

The law also provides legal immunity to poultry corporations.

Additionally, there are regulatory loopholes that have eased the path for large-scale operations.

Oklahoma allows many large industrial chicken farms to register as Poultry Feeding Operations rather than the more strictly regulated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Poultry Feeding Operations have less restrictive setback requirements and do not require the same public notice to neighbors before construction.

Successful lobbying by the poultry industry in the 1990s also led to a loophole where a permit isn’t required if a property owner claims the water is for “domestic use” rather than for commercial purposes. As reported in the Arkansas Advocate, water usage is essentially unlimited. The state Water Resources Board relies on an honor system for water reporting, and the agency has never revoked a permit or penalized anyone for exceeding their allowed water usage.

HB 2053, which was passed in 2023, limits opposition to industrial water permits. The legislation’s clear intent, to which even the bill’s author, Republican state Sen. Brent Howard admitted, was to make it harder for people to oppose large poultry operations.

And in 2024, Stitt vetoed HB 3194 that would have required metering devices on all groundwater wells across the state — a move praised by the agriculture industry and the Oklahoma Farm Bureau.

As lawmakers prepare to convene for the upcoming session next month, they will undoubtedly face continuing pressure to acquiesce to Big Ag interests.

I hope they will bear in mind that it’s possible for the poultry industry and clean water to coexist.

But as AG Drummond cautioned “what we cannot accept is allowing massive corporations to pollute our waterways without consequence.”

Mike Altshuler is a retired educator and environmental activist who lives in Edmond. Oklahoma Voice (oklahomavoice.com) is an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, supported by grants and donations. Oklahoma Voice provides nonpartisan reporting, and retains full editorial independence.